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Chapter 1 Managing vSphere with Command-Line Interfaces
 ESXCLIcommands.TheESXCLIcommandsincludedinthevCLIpackageareequivalenttothe
ESXCLIcommandsavailableintheESXiShell.
 vicfg‐commands.Thevicfg-commandsetissimilartothedeprecatedesxcfg-commandsetin
theESXiShell.
 Miscellaneouscommands.AsmallsetofcommandsformanagingandmonitoringESXihosts,
includingvmkfstoolsandresxtop.Inmanycases,equivalentbutslightlydifferentcommandsare
availableintheESXiShell.
YoucanrunvCLIcommandsfromaWindowsorLinuxsystem,orusevMA.
 InstallthevCLIcommandsetontheWindowsorLinuxsystemfromwhichyouwanttoadministeryour
ESXisystemsandrunvCLIcommands.See“InstallingvCLI”onpage 15.
 DeployavMAvirtualmachinetoanESXisystemandrunvCLIcommandsfromthere.
AfteryouhaveinstalledthevCLIpackage,youcanrunthehostmanagementcommandsinthesetagainst
ESXihosts.YoucanruntheDCLIcommandsagainstaserverbyspecifyingtheIPaddressandcan
managethe
servicesassociatedwiththatserver.
YoumustspecifyconnectionparameterswhenyourunavCLIcommand.Theconnectionparametersdiffer
forDCLIcommandsandforothercommands.See“RunningvCLIHostManagementCommands”onpage 27
and“RunningDCLICommands”onpage 41.
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MPORTANTESXiShellisintendedforexperiencedusersonly.Minorerrorsintheshellcanresultin
seriousproblems.InsteadofrunningcommandsdirectlyintheESXiShell,usevCLIorPowerCLI.